On May 24, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Piqray (alpelisib) tablets, to be used in combination with the FDA-approved endocrine therapy fulvestrant, to treat postmenopausal women, and men, with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative, PIK3CA-mutated, advanced or metastatic breast cancer (as detected by an FDA-approved test) following progression on or after an endocrine-based regimen.

The FDA also approved the companion diagnostic test, therascreen PIK3CA RGQ PCR Kit, to detect the PIK3CA mutation in a tissue and/or a liquid biopsy. Patients who are negative by the therascreen test using the liquid biopsy should undergo tumor biopsy for PIK3CA mutation testing.

“Piqray is the first PI3K inhibitor to demonstrate a clinically meaningful benefit in treating patients with this type of breast cancer. The ability to target treatment to a patient’s specific genetic mutation or biomarker is becoming increasingly common in cancer treatment, and companion diagnostic tests assist oncologists in selecting patients who may benefit from these targeted treatments,” said Richard Pazdur, MD, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence and acting director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “For this approval, we employed some of our newer regulatory tools to streamline reviews without compromising the quality of our assessment. This drug is the first novel drug approved under the Real-Time Oncology Review pilot program. We also used the updated Assessment Aid, a multidisciplinary review template that helps focus our written review on critical thinking and consistency and reduces time spent on administrative tasks.”

Metastatic breast cancer is breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast to other organs in the body (most often the bones, lungs, liver, or brain). When breast cancer is HR-positive, patients may be treated with anti-hormonal treatment (also called endocrine therapy), alone or in combination with other medicines, or chemotherapy.

The efficacy of Piqray was studied in the SOLAR-1 trial, a randomized trial of 572 postmenopausal women and men with HR-positive, HER2-negative, advanced or metastatic breast cancer whose cancer had progressed while on or after receiving an aromatase inhibitor. Results from the trial showed the addition of Piqray to fulvestrant significantly prolonged progression-free survival (median of 11 months vs 5.7 months) in patients whose tumors had a PIK3CA mutation.

Common side effects of Piqray are high blood sugar levels, increase in creatinine, diarrhea, rash, decrease in lymphocyte count in the blood, elevated liver enzymes, nausea, fatigue, low red blood cell count, increase in lipase (enzymes released by the pancreas), decreased appetite, stomatitis, vomiting, weight loss, low calcium levels, prolonged aPTT (blood clotting taking longer to occur than it should), and hair loss.

Health-care professionals are advised to monitor patients taking Piqray for severe hypersensitivity reactions (intolerance). Patients are warned of potentially severe skin reactions (rashes that may result in peeling and blistering of skin or mucous membranes like the lips and gums). Health-care professionals are advised not to initiate treatment in patients with a history of severe skin reactions such as Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, erythema multiforme, or toxic epidermal necrolysis. Patients on Piqray have reported severe hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), and the safety of Piqray in patients with type 1 or uncontrolled type 2 diabetes has not been established. Before initiating treatment with Piqray, health-care professionals are advised to check fasting glucose and HbA1c and to optimize glycemic control. Patients should be monitored for pneumonitis/interstitial lung disease (inflammation of lung tissue) and diarrhea during treatment. Piqray must be dispensed with a patient Medication Guide that describes important information about the drug’s uses and risks.

Piqray is the first new drug application (NDA) for a new molecular entity approved under the Real-Time Oncology Review (RTOR) pilot program, which permits the FDA to begin analyzing key efficacy and safety datasets prior to the official submission of an application, allowing the review team to begin their review and communicate with the applicant earlier. Piqray also used the updated Assessment Aid (AAid), a multidisciplinary review template intended to focus the FDA’s written review on critical thinking and consistency and reduce time spent on administrative tasks. With these two pilot programs, today’s approval of Piqray comes approximately 3 months ahead of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) VI deadline of August 18, 2019.

The FDA granted this application Priority Review designation. The FDA granted approval of Piqray to Novartis. The FDA granted approval of the therascreen PIK3CA RGQ PCR Kit to QIAGEN Manchester, Ltd.

The FDA, an agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.